Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Roger.” Ozzie’s voice was crisp, professional. He eased into a right bank, leading Liz Vespa parallel to the coast.

The cell phone buzzed and Peters whipped it out of the pouch. “Talk to me!” Whoever you are!

“Terry, it’s Jane.”

“You okay?”

His wife’s response was delayed a fraction longer than he had grown to expect in twenty-nine years. He had time to wonder if he had hurt her feelings with his abrupt tone.

“We’re still all right. I wanted to tell you that Skip’s been on the phone to Washington. He called the Pentagon — he has a cell phone — and now he’s talking to somebody at NavAir.”

“Rocky Rhode?”

“I don’t know, honey. It’s … awful … confusing …”

“What about the Flankers?”

“What?”

Peters closed his eyes, forcing composure upon his growing anger and frustration. “Jane … honey … I asked, what about the Flankers?”

There was no reply. Peters lowered the handset from his ear to look at it, willing the inanimate thing to explain itself. He raised it again and spoke slowly, clearly. “Jane, this is Terry. Do you hear me?”

The line clicked twice and went dead.

Delight and Thaler completed their sweep down the east side of the search area, again coming up empty. Zack’s cockpit scan took in his fuel state: twenty-four hundred pounds. Enough for a little while , he thought. Then we’ll have to abort. At his altitude, necessary to ID the target, fuel was going fast.

Decision time , Delight realized. Either we continue trolling this area or we look elsewhere . He waggled his wings, signaling Eric Thaler that they were heading east to hunt along the coast. He motioned for Psycho to spread out, expanding the visual limits of their horizon.

“Do you know any satisfying profanity?”

Robbins wondered if Terry Peters would recognize Walter Brennan’s line from Task Force . The LSO sought any method of easing his friend’s gnawing concern about his wife, if only for a few seconds.

“Lots of profanity, Rob. None satisfying.” Peters bit his thumbnail and stared northward, as if trying to see inland thirty miles to El Toro from fifteen miles at sea. The uncertainty, the concern, the growing fear all eroded his cultivated composure. Aviator cool was one thing — the modulated voice during an in-flight fire or engine failure. Standing here, feeling 280,000 horsepower throbbing impotently beneath his feet, was an appallingly new experience. He paced a few steps back and forth, hardly noticing that he forced Odegaard and Mei out of the way.

“Why the hell haven’t we heard from AirPac or Miramar?”

“I don’t know, Terry. Shall I give ’em a call?”

Peters spun on one heel, his face eerily alight. “I should’ve thought of it before, Rob! The Chinese A-4s!”

Robbins shook his head. “What about ’em?”

“They probably know where the Penang is! So would the Flankers. If ATC …”

“I’m gone!” Robbins seemed to vaporize as he exited the bridge.

“Captain?” Odegaard stood near the helmsman, wearing a querulous expression.

“I should’ve thought of it before!” Peters smiled for the first time in an ephemeral eternity. “If air traffic control can break out those A-4s and track them, it’ll tell us where the target is!”

The watch officer nodded. “Mr. Robbins is talking to ATC?”

“No, Mr. Odegaard. I suspect he’s screaming at them.”

“Peters, what the hell is going on out there?”

Nice to hear from you, too, Rocky . “I don’t have much time, Admiral. Tell me what you know and what you can do to help.”

A continent away, Rear Admiral Allen Rhode nearly sputtered at the flippancy from a retired captain. Instead, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations gripped the phone harder and fought to control his anger. “Mr. Lieu just called to tell me that Santa Cruz has been taken over by a bunch of Chinese dissidents, that they’re going to bomb merchant vessels, and you’re helping them!”

Peters almost gasped. So Lieu’s behind it! Why didn ’ t Wei tell us?

Rhode was back inside Peters’s ear. “Then Skip Ottmann called. He says you and Wei are going to sink a Malaysian ship with nukes, that he’s trapped with your wife at El Toro, that A-4s are taking off, and the goddam Russians are loading goddamn AA-11s on their goddamn Flankers!”

“Okay, Admiral. You got the picture, right? Lieu’s the fly in the ointment, and Wei’s with us. Now, what’re you doing to keep those Flankers off my guys? Hell, they’re probably gear up by now.”

Rhode’s voice came back more modulated. “Yeah. I heard from AirPac that you need a scramble from Miramar.”

“Well?” So Rob called it. Paglia’s a wimp.

“Terry, the Marines don’t maintain an alert. At best it’d take them a half hour to upload ordnance. I’ve given the order, but this’ll be over by then.”

Peters’s heart sank. Maybe Paglia’s not such a wimp. “What help can you get us, then?”

Rhode paused, and Peters uncharitably imagined N-88 calculating the odds of how best to play the hand. “Listen: the Boorda’s headed for the SoCal Operating Area. Most of the air wing just flew aboard from Lemoore; they deploy in two days.”

Peters’s mind raced. The new Nimitz-class CVN with Air Wing 18 would be even closer than MCAS Miramar. “A really tactical guy like Baccardi Riccardi might have a couple of Toms or Hornets on Alert Five.”

“Hook, I already made the call. I don’t know their deck status, but they’ll be talking to you directly. It’s best if I stay out of the loop, you know …”

Yeah, I know, Rocky. If anything goes wrong … “Thanks. I’ll try to keep you informed.” Peters hung up, then turned to the speaker. “Radio, this is Peters.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Rob, tell me something.”

Robbins’s voice shot back. “Terry, I’m talking to ATC at LAX. They’re working the problem, but I think they’re more concerned with diverting commercial traffic than finding our bogeys.”

“Any joy at all?”

“They had a couple low-level skin paints out around Tustin but nothing definite. The A-4s aren’t squawking, of course.”

Peters bit his lip. The Chinese interceptors naturally would stay low to evade radar while avoiding transponder identification. “Rob, we need a Hawkeye or another AWACS — something that can break a bogey out of the ground clutter. I need to talk to Boorda .”

“Rog, boss. I’ll keep after the feds.”

Peters straightened up, and Odegaard approached him. “Excuse me, Captain. I was just wondering — couldn’t our own radar pick up the Chinese?”

“Not over land — too much background clutter. Over water, maybe, depending on their altitude and distance. Otherwise …”

“ Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz . This is USS Boorda .” The power of the transmission was such that Mei turned down the volume on the bridge console.

Peters answered in person, speaking bridge to bridge. “Lima Delta, this is Santa Cruz , Captain Peters speaking.” He used the CVN’s generic call sign to demonstrate his knowledge and authority. “Good thing we worked with these guys at Fallon,” he explained to Odegaard and Mei.

“Ah, yeah, Terry. This is Ben Spurlock. Listen, I’m putting you through to CAG Riccardi in strike ops. Call sign Chainsaw. You copy?”

Peters grinned. Captain Spurlock had been Lieutenant Commander “Spurs” Spurlock in Peters’s air wing. “Hey, Ben. Sure thing, put Baccardi through.”